Tag Archives: ebooks

Face it. Books are hard enough to sell with reviews than without them. Some people go to extremes to get them. Buying reviews? Forget about it. Begging for reviews? Nah! Lucking up on reviews? Possible.

(PART A)

People are always asking about “How to get more reviews of their products?” One of the best ways to find reviewers is to go directly to the source.

Everyone should know that more good reviews make the product have increased appeal to others that might be interested in buying. Products with descriptive reviews with 3, 4 or 5 star ratings simply sell better than those with no reviews.

But why are reviews that important? They generate more interest in the product and add the information needed that helps the buyer make a decision on whether to purchase. The ability to read what other customers have to say about a product is a huge advantage to consumers.

Asking others to review your product or book is about as bad as asking them to buy it. Nobody wants to be pushed into anything. So what steps do you take to ask for a review of your product?

First, you have to find that resource where all they do is review other products. These people don’t mind reviewing items if its’ something interesting to them. At the bottom of this post is the link to that source.

Second, once you are on the site you need to do your research, which let me warn you will take considerable time out of your schedule. If you expect things to happen, you must invest something, which in this case is your time. Find someone that interest you on the site and click to open their page profile where you can read about them and see the products they have reviewed.

This will work more in your favor if you will work down the list considerably towards the middle. These reviewers are trying to improve their rating to move forward to the front of the list. Their profile page will give you a great deal of information about them. It also provides you with contact information.

All the information provided will either makes you decide to contact them to seek a review of your product or move forward to others. If you do contact a reviewer, do it through their email address, offering to gift your product to them in return for their opinion about it in return. Please note: Verified reviews carry more clout because they are a verified purchase through Amazon. Make sure that they are interested in your product whether it is a book about romance, science fiction, mystery, etc.

Another way to receive reviews is on your social media outlets. No, you don’t post on there that you want reviews. You get to know people through social networking first and become good friends with them over time.

After some passage of time, you might one day be talking with them about something and it relates to your product or book. That is when you bring it into the subject. Offer them one free if possible in exchange for their thoughts in a review of the product. Most people will be very happy to help you out in order to receive a free gift in return.

(PART C)

Take the opportunity to join many of the very useful book blogging websites available on the Internet. Some site owners will offer you a review of your book and promotional space free or for a small fee on their sites. Not only can you get exposure with a possible review, the owner might ask you if you would be interested in being featured in an interview.

It is another golden opportunity to gain reviews and additional exposure for your brand. This is another area where you will have to devote substantial time out of your schedule to locate these websites or you can go right to those resources here in “The Best Book Blogs on the Web;” on a previous post.

There are always other opportunities to explore in order to receive reviews but here today, I offered you three ways to gain reviews. Always remember that the steps you start taking today produce the results achieved tomorrow.

Venturing into the web world universe is something I do from time to time. Recently I ran upon an article post featuring a young lady. Her book will be the feature story in a new upcoming Lifetime Movie. Delaine Moore is the Author of that book. The title of the book is called, “The Secret S*x Life of a Single Mom.” The book can be found here http://www.amazon.com/dp/1580053866

I’m always excited as well as amazed at how an Author’s will to succeed takes them to the top of the mountain. It is stories like these that each one of us that writes should be proud to have a chance to read. This is a prime example why anyone who writes fiction novels should stay the course because you never know, it might be you up there in the batter’s box with a chance to hit that next homerun.

Sure enough, we all will need more of it in 2014. The question is “Will you work for it?” I have numerous sites that pay you to write articles and those clients on those sites will pay you very well for the time and work required. Sometimes making money from books alone is not enough to keep our heads above water so we all have to find other solutions to maximize additional income opportunities.

I have a book on Amazon called “Article Writer Success.” In that book, you will find websites and blogs that pay you to write for them. That pay you can make is really good money if you will devote the time to earn it. After all, you are going to have to work somewhere unless you are rich or inherited a fortune from your family.

Are you serious about making money? Would you like to pursue a career in freelancing opportunities? Are you one of those people who grow tired of commuting to a job that you hate?

There is money to be made and things that you can conquer online in the web universe if you will seriously devote your time to attaining those life long goals you dream about. People can show you the opportunities but it is up to you alone as to whether you really want the kind of life that you might be constantly dreaming about.

As of this post, I’m currently working on a second book called “Article Writer Success, Volume 2.” In that book, more websites and blogs will be listed that pay you good money for writing for them. Most of the requirements of these companies are for you to provide identification and payment options on their application process.

I do a ton of freelance work as well as write books to publish on Amazon. In fact, I do very well with my career. You can say that I’m one of those people who took the initiative to make a living branching out on my own! The biggest thing about what I do today is that if you seriously take those same steps, you can achieve the same goals and make a good living also.

If you are a decent writer and seriously devote the time needed to freelancing, you can make money online. All of the websites on the web need information to fill their pages on websites and blogs. If you will perform the required tasks that the ones seeking writers ask for, you can make some great money for the work involved.

Also, I included here some additional sites that you can check out that might be of interest to you below. I hope that some of you out there find an interest in freelancing from this article I posted on the site here. This is a 500 word plus article so you see how easy that it really can be?

That is only just a few above but to give you that general idea just what I’m explaining to you. 2014 has just begun so take advantage of opportunities that present themselves to you during this New Year. Good Luck out there on the journey!

By far one of the toughest challenges anyone will ever take on in life as a career is the self-publishing lifestyle. If you’re one of those recently starting out on the journey then you have already experienced just how hard it can be to write and market those books at the same time.

In the first part of this series, we explored just a small taste of what it is like to pursue this type of career. In this second installment, I’ll give you some inside information to shorten those headaches you probably develop from banging your head against the wall trying to find what works the easiest.

Well my friends, there are few easy solutions to what will work for you to sell thousands of books month after month. Your greatest ally is time. Yes time, because you have more of it than any other resource. What do you do with it? Do you waste yours? Do you invest it in learning? Do you just use all your time writing? Those are great questions to answer for yourself and surely, you can think of some more to ask yourself.

If you are a beginning Author with only a couple of books under your belt, the top advice that can be given is to continue to write more. If you’re writing a second or third book already, you need to be promoting the first one(s). On my site, you can find many ways to promote and market those books. That material comes out of my books published on Amazon. Sure, you can call that a way of marketing. I offer you free advice from material out of my books. By the way, I have another new book coming out soon, “SEO, What’s my Rank?”

If you are looking for ways to market books after you published them, then follow some of the steps listed here. Get you an author website going right away. Add a sign-up form on your landing page to gain an e-mail list of followers so you can reach out to them easier with a newsletter or a new book release. You might not convince everyone to sign but gradually the list will grow.

Many refuse to put all their apples into one cart, with that being going solo with Amazon. I don’t care what anyone else might think. A new Author needs to learn and grow! That being spoken, Amazon has the best platform with the tools and goodies to help. There is too much to overwhelm a new Author trying to self publish on other platforms so that is why I personally recommend Amazon alone.

Over time, you can always move books to other self-publishing outlets or publish new ones over the various others. I guarantee you that the bulk of your sales will come from Amazon. Another thing that will help you is to keep track of everything that you do with each book.

Make you a chart sheet to record the Title, blurb information, publish date, etc. Include on this chart, all the sites that your book is listed online. You see, if you have a handy little chart like this on each book, it makes it much easier to reference all the information on that book in nanoseconds. This is great for when you need it in a spur of the moment to post the information on a site for a free book promo or to publish through a paid ad. It keeps you from having to open several sites at once trying to gather the information.

Seek out all the places or sites that readers are going to in search of what your book is about. That means you are looking for that reader audience where they congregate. If your book is a fiction novel, you want to scour the universal web for those readers in hopes of grabbing attention on your book. If it is a non-fiction book about cooking with recipes, you will be looking for those readers at websites about food preparation, cooking cuisine, etc. On the Internet, the sky is the limit because the web is never-ending.

You might find many opportunities to guest blog a post on a site once you randomly begin to seek out those marketing venues for your books. Most everyone that has a decent size following on their sites offer guest blogging to Authors in the hope that it helps bring more visitors to their websites.

Try to spend at least one hour each day marketing your books in some shape, way or form. You might spend it one day commenting on a few sites. The next day you could spend it on social media. The following day you could spend it on Author or book forums commenting on posts. These little things help establish you as an Author. Bookbuzzr is a great place to use to gain additional exposure for your books. Nifty tools there to help you get sales on your books. For a small monthly fee of a few bucks, you have an arsenal at your fingertips to help you in your marketing tactics.

It has already been mentioned in past post on my site about offering a new book free and the sites are there written on a post if you will do your research. Doing a little preplanning before a free promotion can net you a lot of free downloads of your book. Many sites request advanced noticed before posting your free promo. The negative side of the free promotion is the possibility of getting one star reviews but if you are so fearful of reviews, why bother to publish? At one time, the free promotion could net an Author with many sales. That isn’t the case now but still many new Authors are finding decent sales after a free promo run on a new book.

Using all social media outlets will help you market your name, brand and those books that you write. Use them all, from twitter to Tumblr, from linkedin to pin-it, from your website to other websites. There are so many opportunities out there now to use media to get the word out about you and your books and by not taking advantage of it all is just like throwing it away.

A remarkable opportunity is a book series. It is the hot item going today to make an unknown into a well known. The secret? Making the first book in the series perma-free. I don’t know how long this marketing strategy will continue to succeed as many more Authors are finding it the key that unlocks the door to their success.

Alright, We covered a lot here. So, what is Social media? Goodreads, Twitter, facebook, google+, yahoo, linkedin, tumblr, etc. Next we have Content media, which is? They are Press releases, articles, guest posts, book bloggers, etc.

Those two, Social and Content go directly hand in hand with your website. That website is your Author Platform base. You are gaining an email list of followers to your site as an addition through hits. Your website is the foundation or house that supports everything else that you do. Now then, we are finally getting somewhere on what it takes to sell books.

I’ll continue this series later so look forward to it. All of my books are listed on Amazon and my site. You have to market every way possible. Have a nice weekend!

Nothing is quite as sweet in the Indie Publishing World than having happy readers. The great thing about them is if you please them once, they’re more inclined to buy another book from you in the future!
That’s the great thing about your customers. They show their love and loyalty to you when you please them. They also have this delightful manner of obtaining referral customers for you by emails and word of mouth.
To earn this repeat business from past readers, offer them more quality and value in any future books you write to publish. Earn that extra word of mouth and Internet referral business by doing the things that you have learned in the past.

If you know who some of your readers are, email them, phone them in person or just target an article on your website to them and ask them to tell their friends about you and your books. This is a great referral opportunity for you as a publisher to reach out to those readers that love what you do and ask them for a little tenderness.

Always treat your loyal readers with love, loyalty, devotion, consideration and professionalism. That will always keep them happy and satisfied. The more satisfied your reader’s stay, the more satisfied readers you’ll gain in the future.

Satisfied readers not only buy your books but they are one of your greatest allies in selling more books!
That is a powerful sentence written above! It deserves to be repeated again!
“Satisfied readers not only buy your books but they are one of your greatest allies in selling more books!” It runs a complete circle around their friends and right back to you in more books sales! Now how nifty is that?

You see the image above? Yes, my image with my money but used here for the pupose to drill into you a business sense to make sure you’re doing everything that you can to make those customers happy. Those customers being the ones that buy a product, service or book from you!

In the business environment, the only way to make it work is by top quality customer service. That goes into any type of business enviroment. Oh, but I’m only an author writing books someone might say. Think again! If you write to publish books online to sell, then you are a business. You’re also the manager and ceo of said business.

Not everyone knows who their readers or customers are that buy books from them. Yes you do! They leave reviews about your books, you may be talking to customers who buy your books on book forums. People that like you on FB or follow you on twitter might be some of your customers. They might be on a email sign-up form from your website.

Always find time to thank your customers for purchasing from you. In closing this article, here is a great way to thank them without lifting a finger. At the end of a book, Always leave a sentence or two explaining to them how grateful you are to them for purchasing one of your books.

You never know, they just might buy another one from you! Have a nice week.

Many Authors look for every opportunity to promote their books and their names. The Select program at Amazon giving away a new published book is still a good way to get exposure. Rather than spend hours searching for those site links, I thought I would post some of them here from one of my books so others would have a copy too.
Some of these sites need to know in advance when the free promo is scheduled, so do your homework and check out each one before you set up your promotion. Those free book promotions still work if you have a fantastic story to read so never give up and use all promotional opportunities.

Want more exposure for your name, books and website or blog? Read on. Article Write and submit those articles to the many sites on the web. Great way for you to build an additional following by readers who will love the articles you wrote that they read.

Just like your books, make sure that the articles are spelled correctly and good grammar basics are followed. Most of the sites accept articles on a variety of content. Those articles can be anywhere from 400 words up to 2000 word articles.

Writing great article content can bring you more sales of those books but you never will know what you’re missing if you won’t give it a try. Here are many sites that you can write articles for submission. These sites let you sign up and your website or blog with your books are where those readers come to if they like the content you write.

The above will get you on a good start if you consider using that option. There is still other ways to help gain sales of books. The above are only a few ways to market your products or books to people and readers. In the future, I may post other ways to gain readers.
Have a great holiday weekend!

Do you use power words or the correct key words in your sales copy? I bet some of you hardly give the subject of key wording or power words any attention. If you wish to make sales of your products or services, you better study this topic intently.
It’s true, 99.9 percent of those that use proper Key Wording, and Power Words make more money than those who think they are doing it effectively. What do the best Internet Marketers have in common? They all have an effective sales page to promote their products! Most of them research Key Words and Power Words that best fit the description for their particular product and insert them into their sales pitch or promotional page.
Whether it’s for books or for a system to make money, many Marketers are two steps ahead of the game when it comes to promoting the product effectively. These people have learned how to take it to the next level when writing those sales letters and promotional methods.
Any Product or service you might sell can be a make or break of making a sale just by your sales pitch or letter. That’s why you need to do your research and pick the most effective Power Words and Key Words to insert into your promotional page. For those of you to take notice, Power Words and Key Words are inserted into this first chapter here in this little book.
Have you taken a moment to notice them? Can you locate them without a hint? What does the phrase “I’m about to reveal to you” really mean? The answer is simple! It’s an explanation that the Marketing Professional is going to explain in detail just what you will receive from their product. People are attracted to brand new products or services. Since new is synonymous with excitement, words such as “excitement’ and “hot” are good draws for advertising new products.
Products or services available for a limited time would have words in the sales copy related to words such as “direct,” “limited,” “immediately,” expressing urgency to buy the product now. Let’s use an example here. You just wrote a fantastic brand new fiction novel that you are going to sell online. In your sales pitch to promote your unknown novel, what do you think would be most important in drawing interest to that new book?
If you answered that with your book description, you’re correct but what helps increase the likelihood of getting a sale from that description? The answer is properly wording the description with Power Words and Key Words so more people are drawn into clicking on the “Look Inside” feature to read more about that new novel you wrote. You could write a best seller or already have one written online. That novel might be losing sales just by the description you written for the book. It’s true!
Always take a hard look at your book description page and make sure you made the most of it by inserting Power Words and Key Words in that description which really is a sales pitch to promote interest in that novel! Another area many fail to think about is the cover image on that book. You should always be sure to Key Word that image in the tags before you upload it to Amazon to make it is enriched with words that will bring customers to your site from their word searches. Beginning with your first chapter or prologue of your book, insert Keywords and Phrases to draw interest in that novel.
With the amount of books around today, every effort you achieve to promote yourself and your work will only increase the amount of sales you can make. Did you know that almost 92 percent of sales are made within the retail industry when the product goes on sale for a reduced price?
People are conditioned to wait for a product to go on sale before they make the purchase to buy. What Power Words can you think of right this moment to use as a sales copy to promote your product to entice that customer to buy? Using words like “Only,” “Discount,” “New” and “Special” come to mind very quickly.
Then you can add in the phrase “Huge discount special, this week only!” Do you see the power in that Power Word Phrase? If you are into mass media marketing, could you use that phrase in the promotion of your product on such avenues as twitter or Facebook?
The answer to that is absolutely! You want to use the best Words and Phrases you can possibly come up with to get the customer’s valuable attention on your product. So what do you have to do in order to find great Key Words?
Find a great Key Word Suggestion program that gives you the best words based on what people are searching for. A good one to use is http://ubersuggest.org
Easy to use and produces some great keyword results. This keyword research tool is renowned for its ability to pull data from all the major search engines along with getting information from the less popular ones. It is probably next only to the Google Keyword Tool in terms of its usage and popularity.
Remember, every little thing that you can do helps in marketing. I hope that this information provided to you is extremely helpful as well as opening your mind to the possibility of finding another avenue to increase your book sales. As always, you’re welcome to comment or send me a personal email at http://bookmaster007@hotmail.com

Writing books, and marketing can take up huge amounts of time. Most that take on the challenge of Indie Self-Publishing never realize what is involved in the process. I was talking to someone the other day. They agreed that it can be one of the toughest jobs on the planet. They also told me that once you become established by building your brand that the opportunities are endless. I tend to agree with them on that.

Last year, I published nine books under my name. I have another one to publish shortly. Here is the cover and title for my latest book on Search Engine Optimization.

Here are the covers for the others below.

There is one thing that you have to have in this business, and that is plenty of drive to continue the process. Some of you have heard it before, “Rinse and Repeat.” My goal for this year is to publish at least 20 books which would double my output in 2013. My time was limited during the past year due to a variety of issues. This year, nothing stands in the way of completing that goal.

Many feel overwhelmed once they get into Self-Publishing, but if they take the time to learn as they continue to write the process becomes easier. The great thing about it is that once you have a back-list to continue to build on, it makes you more reputable to others.

As this New Year continues to unfold, More books will be added to my back-list. Maybe by the time July rolls around, I can take a needed two week break from it all to rest on vacation. That remains to be seen as I’m always focused on the goals that I set for myself. To be able to be given this opportunity to self publish by a great company like Amazon is a dream that I cherish each day.

The purpose in this thread post is to give hope to others that might not feel as though they are doing well in this business. I’m here to tell you that it takes time and commitment in order to succeed. Keep pushing forward while learning all that you can about Self-Publishing. You just might find that that ship you’re sailing on isn’t going to sink with you on-board after all.

Yes, we have all heard this before, but how many of us follow what will work? It can be a tough job writing, and getting our books ready to publish. Having the marketing issue to deal with makes the process that much tougher.
Not only do we have to market that freshly published new book, but also we have to keep the wheels turning by writing that next book. How are we supposed to do all of this in so many hours per day?
Many follow the 80/20 rules. Eighty percent means writing and the other twenty percent is given to the marketing process. With the fierce competition in the marketplace these days, it makes sense to devote as much time as possible to marketing.
Now some Authors are using 70/30 rules to the process. I think 2014 will be much tougher than 2013 because of the ever-increasing amount of books published. Things will continue to tighten as the year unfolds.
For those with quite a few books on the storefront, the increased time devoted to marketing make good business sense. Part of my New Year goals was to implement more time to marketing. I decided to go with 65/35 rules since I have a backlist of books published. New Authors with one or two books have to go less with marketing to devote more time writing.
So many ways exist to market books that it is insane. Blog forums, mailing lists, blogs, websites, writing articles, paid ads, free ads, free promos and advertised to the free promotion sites, perma-free first book in a series, guest interviews on blogs and social media outlets like twitter or facebook. Don’t forget Linked-In or sites to make money doing freelance writing.
A few must below. You need to be in front of those readers on these sites.
Ereader News Today: http://www.ereadernewstoday.com/
Kindle Nation: http://kindlenationdaily.com/
Pixel of Ink: http://www.pixelofink.com
Inspired Reads: http://www.inspiredreads.com
Kindle Reader: http://kindlereader.blogspot.com/
GoodReads: http://www.goodreads.com
IndieReader: http://indiereader.com/author-promotional-opportunities/

Make sure you use good keywords in the blurbs. Do a word search on what readers are looking for and place the top keywords or phrases in your seven keywords when you upload your new books.
Everywhere your footsteps are on the web should leave your marks for people to follow you home. This means placing your website link into your signature so when you leave comments at other sites, those people might find their way directly back to your website or blog.
The prices of your books make a huge impact on sales. Don’t place a 4.99 price on a 15-page book! It just can’t happen, unless it is a new formula that makes money out of thin air.
Price books accordingly. .99-cent eBooks sell if marketing is used correctly. A 150,000-word novel priced at 2.99 is a good selling price if the story is a great one that captivates a reader audience. Books priced higher than 2.99 still gain sales if they are higher in word count.
Many Authors are now finding success with books with a lower word count such as 15,000 to 20,000-word count. When it comes to self-publishing, you never know what will work unless you try it.
The wise words “Think outside the box,” are so true when it comes to each individual writer or author. If you are having problems with sales, try something else until you find what works. Once you find that formula, rinse and repeat it until the sizzle begins to fizzle.
The problem with success is that Authors will tell the world what worked for them, and then you have a flood of others repeating that process. Very soon, you have everyone cashing in on what worked for that one Author. This is why you will always have to find ways to keep those wheels turning.
No matter what your current formula for success is, one day you will have to implement another new strategy to stay competitive in the self-publishing game. You have to keep writing, stay on a smart marketing formula and continue to learn new ways to get those books in front of millions of readers.